Determining the prefences and achievement of educational inititutions for visual arts on university entrance exams: A survey in Kütahya

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether a meaningful difference exists between the success and the university enterance exam of students graduating from the specialized art schools at high school level. The study conducted on painting students of Anatolian Fine Arts High Schools and Grafik Arts and Ceramic students of Vocational High Schools.The scooping methology is applied in the study. The universe of the study consists of 182 students, who are graduated from Anatolian Fine Arts High Schools and Vocational, and Anatolian Vocational High School students, currently enrolled in the Dumlupinar University?s Faculty of Fine Arts. Since the whole universe is reachable, no sampling procedure is applied. The questionnaire distribution showed that 52.74% of survey results were useful.At the beginning of the first part, the concept of art education, the necessity of art education and its functions are discussed. In addition, art education in Europe and Turkey under both pre-Republican and post-Republican eras are examined. In this historical perspective, because of their positive effects on educational system, Bauhaus of Europe and Village Institutions of Turkey are investigated in detail.The second section provides an examination of high school level art education institutions of Turkey. At this regard, Anatolian Fine Arts High Schools and Vocational, and Anatolian Vocational High Schools are investigated with respect to the purposes of their foundations, their course contents, and the conditions their graduated students facing at higher education enterance.The last section of the study provides the results of an application conducted by a survey on students of the Faculty of Fine Arts at Dumlupinar University. The purpose of the survey is to evaluate the effect of high school types on higher education. In order to do this, the SPSS 13.0 software is used. The analysis of chi-square and factor methods are performed for evaluation and predictions. The significance level of 0.05 chosen for statistical analysis.As a result of the analysis, graduates of Anatolian Fine Arts High Schools consider that their high school education is more effective in their higher education preparations compared to both Vocational and Anatolian Vocational High School graduates. In order to foster the latter ones? performance during their higher education especically in workshops, it can be suggested that students should be donated with the perception of regarding their field as an art as well as a vocation. Finally, it may be better to implement a special skill test in entering these schools.